Find the best slow cooker

Slow cookers have been around for a good long while, and recently with
the general unease that is being expressed about some fast
foods and reduced household spending, people are rediscovering the beauty
and simplicity of slow cooking. Simple, electrically-heated
pots, that allow you to cook meals in a way that retains more of
the goodness and flavour of your food. They are an ideal way of
cooking casseroles, curries, soups etc and particularly good for
the long slow cooking that’s best for the less expensive cuts of
meat. They are
cheap to buy and
very economical to run. So simple to use, just pop the
ingredients into the slow cooker in the morning and by evening
you have a lovely hot meal ready to eat.

Best slow cooker sizes
Slow cooker capacity is measured in litres and ranges from about 1.5 –
7 litres. The
smallest size is really only suitable for one portion meals and from about 3 litres is considered family sized. It
maybe a good idea to buy bigger than you need so that
you can freeze some meals and get the most out of your slow
cooker.

Best slow cooker features
Many slow cookers have removable pots that
are dishwasher safe; either made from toughened glass or
ceramic. This is a real bonus as ones without removable
pots are not easy to clean. Choose cool
handles and slow cooker models with glass lids so that you can see what’s
happening easily. Try to buy a best slow cooker model that is the simplest to use
and the easiest to clean as you’re far more likely to use it in
the first place.

Slow cookers are an easy way to cook “proper wholesome food” without
the fuss. All the preparation can be done beforehand so that you
can come home to a hot, home-cooked meal. They are very simple
to use and always come with instruction
books with slow cooker recipes for you to try.

Are slow cookers worth the effort?

On a cold and dank winter's evening there is
surely nothing better than coming home from a hard day's work to
find a bubbling stew or creamy casserole sitting ready to eat on
the kitchen table. It's not surprising then that in these hard
times slow cooker sales are booming and that an ever-increasing
army of devotees are returning to the time and money saving
device with a newfound enthusiasm. For these penny-pinching and
time-conscious cooks, all that remains to do each evening is to
soak up the aromas as they chop some vegetables or slice a loaf
of crusty bread before sitting down to a delicious and
hassle-free diner.

First introduced in the 1970s, by Rival, which
named it the Crock-Pot, the slow cooker soon became the must
have gadget for the proud suburban housewife. Designed for
moist-heat cooking, the slow cooker produces steam which
condenses on the lid, then returns to the pot, making it
particularly ideal for stews, soups and casseroles.

Now, though, they have shed their retro image
and come back into vogue as cash-strapped consumers adopt the
ethos of slow, low-energy and low-cost living – best slow
cookers only use the same amount of electricity as a light bulb
and are perfect for transforming cheaper cuts of meat, such as
chicken thighs, shoulders of lamb and belly of pork, into tender
and tasty dishes.

Slow cookers are also proving increasingly
popular among busy professionals who want to rein in their
spending and are attracted by the idea of having a healthy and
nutritious home-cooked meal ready for when they get in from
work.

Winter traditionally heralds a rise in best
slow cooker sales, but it is recession that has pushed sales
through the roof. Tesco alone is seeing 12,000 of the appliances
fly of its shelves every week, while John Lewis and Morphy
Richards have seen sales grow 64 per cent and 16.4 per cent
respectively since last year. And Robert Dyas, Lakeland and
Ultimate Products, a major buyer a distributor of homewares,
have also reported significant increases in sales.
Source: The Independent 01/01/2009 - Read the full article
here